


Stockholm

by Buddleia



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-17
Updated: 2009-11-17
Packaged: 2017-10-03 04:11:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Buddleia/pseuds/Buddleia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Episode tag for The Return, so spoilers.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Stockholm

**Author's Note:**

> Episode tag for The Return, so spoilers.

So, the first week was just plain busy and so was the next and the next. After that, it was peaceful and how ridiculous was that?  
It was odd, what she had got used to. She missed her office and the balcony. The unnatural noise and even more unnatural quiet eventually replaced the faint noise of the waves. She reached for her headset a hundred times the first two days, then savagely suppressed the habit. Food smelled revolting for a while, subtly sour and yeasty. She subsisted on wholewheat noodles and spinach for about a fortnight, decided some kinds of self-denial were actually self-indulgent, and hit the takeout as soon as it started to smell appetising again.

She found herself thinking constantly of Teyla, Teyla who had lost so much and still had so much to lose. Sometimes she wondered about Ronon, but he had lost so very much that it was hard to feel the same concern. He might or might not be safer with the Athosians, but safety was not what he wanted. Thinking of Teyla made her throat hurt.

It didn't get easier. Sometimes, she sat up on the bed and tried to forget names. Halling. Kojan. Dorley. Tal. The living scrolled in front of her eyes, familiar as neighbours or colleagues, maddening. The names of the dead were easier to deal with, but their faces appeared, sometimes.

The calls never stopped. She dutifully listened to them all and then deleted them.

She knew Carson's resolve already, but his action in just showing up at her house - when she knew he had been in Scotland - was so desperate that it knocked her completely for a loop. For some reason, she had imagined all of them, despite their calls, to be getting on with their lives. They all deserved to enjoy some of the fruits of their work and she was disappointed that they were so obviously as lost as she was. Rodney had lost any illusion of invulnerability long ago, and his solid - and correct - valuation of his worth to the programme didn't seem to matter any more. He made jokes about countdowns and nuclear warheads as if he had never spent a sleepless week pinning his terrified mind again and again to the machinery in front of him. John made snide comments about young marines, the scar in his neck almost hidden by his shirt collar. Dinner with the team found her completely unable to deal with them and she knew she made a poor showing.

The day she committed an act of madness and joined her team in ripping through the SGC and stealing a jumper, she felt no guilt at all. They had taken from her the one thing she had to lose. There was no punishment that could be worse than that, no guilt necessary for taking it back. She saw John's hand shake as he cut off Landry. She thought of his military record. She thought of Teyla and the possibility of loss. Still she felt nothing except clean relief.

 

~end~


End file.
